People use a variety of senses to navigate and interact with the various environments they encounter on a daily basis. For example, people use their senses of sight and sound to navigate in their homes, on the street, through workplaces and shopping centers, and so on. Such environments may be designed and configured under the assumption that people will be able to use senses such as sight and sound for navigation.
However, many people are sensory impaired in one way or another. People may be deaf or at least partially auditorily impaired, blind or at least partially visually impaired, and so on. By way of example, the World Health Organization estimated in April of 2012 that 285 million people were visually impaired. Of these 285 million people, 246 million were estimated as having low vision and 39 million were estimated to be blind. Navigation through environments designed and configured for those lacking sensory impairment may be challenging or difficult for the sensory impaired.
Some sensory impaired people use guidance devices or relationships to assist them in navigating and interacting with their environments. For example, some blind people may use a cane in order to navigate and interact with an environment. Others may use a guide animal.